Tag: The Girl at the Door

A nameless 6-months pregnant woman is finding her place in Miden. Miden is a future society that has grown out of “The Crash”. The woman lives with her nameless boyfriend, who is a professor. One day the woman receives a visit from a young girl who claims that she once had a violent relationship with the woman’s boyfriend while the girl was his student. The girl has made a complaint to those in charge of Miden and they are taking testimony and deciding whether the boyfriend should be banned from Miden. In alternating chapters, the woman and man reflect on their relationship.

This book is being publicized as literary fiction. I would place it more in the erotica genre, and low class erotica at that. The language is consistently and needlessly obscene as are the sex scenes. I don’t consider myself a prude and believe that sexual scenes can have a powerful effect when done properly. However, this is more of a case where the story is just an excuse for writing trashy scenes.

I really did try to ignore the language and look beneath that for something of substance but was unable to find it. I was fooled by the literary fiction description, by the fact that it has been bought for a TV series, by the fact that it was felt good enough to translate into English from Italian, and by reviews such as this: “this uncompromising, fiercely intelligent novel confirms the moral usefulness of serious art”. Maybe it was just me. I’ll give it two stars because there were short sections involving the pregnant woman when she was talking about the baby that I found interesting. But this is not one that I can recommend.

This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.